


Two Lost Souls Swimming in a Fishbowl

by orphan_account



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Matteo meets David on a train during a solo trip to Amsterdam. They explore the city together and fall in love. Only problem is, David doesn't want to be in love.





	1. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet on the train.

Matteo’s hair is getting too long. Now it nearly covers his eyes.

He has nowhere to be and nothing to do other than hang out with the boys, go to the grocery store for more snacks and visit his dealer for a refill of weed. The beginning of his gap year commenced a little over a month ago. It’s been a continuous block of sunrises and sunsets playing on an endless loop, days blurring from one to the next.

It was great at first, but there’s only so many hours a person can spend smoking joints in the sun before they start feeling a little restless. And though Matteo is someone who historically loves doing nothing, his baked brain comes up with a new ideology that seems to resonate in the moment - he hazily thinks life is now, right this second when he’s 18 and just graduated school and has no immediate plans for the future besides simply live.

Perhaps he could pack a bag and go on a road trip. But no. He’s been too lazy to get his license (despite Hans’ constant insistence that he’d teach him to drive), so he ends up googling train tickets. He has enough cash stored in a cigar box, thanks to a graduation gift from his mom. He counts it then tries to calculate. He’s really stoned, but he thinks he’ll be able to afford a roundtrip ticket and maybe 4 nights in a cheap hostel, eating only bread and cheese along the way. So he doesn’t give much more thought before purchasing a ticket to Amsterdam and just like that, he leaves tomorrow at noon.

***

The next morning, he throws a few things in his backpack, unloads all the cash from his cigar box and leaves around 11:15.

He walks through Berlin’s muggy heat towards the train station. When he arrives, an attendant prints his ticket from behind the front counter then he sits in the waiting area, scrolling through his phone and googling things to do in Amsterdam while trying not to fall asleep. In true Matteo fashion, he didn’t plan ahead and stayed up way too late last night.

He only has 2 minutes left before it’s time to board when someone falls backwards into the chair across from him. They take a few gasps of air before dropping a black duffel bag to the ground with a muted thud. It’s all done so alarmingly that Matteo pockets his phone to look at this person instead, floating his eyes up from unscuffed white sneakers to take in the rest. So this is a boy. This is a very attractive boy. Black jeans, white shirt, wavy dark hair, olive skin, brown eyes. The boy is looking around the train station but then, before Matteo can look away, he focuses and their eyes lock.

They hold eye contact for a few seconds. Matteo feels like he’s drowning and everything around him suddenly becomes secondary to this. Whatever This is. Announcements over the loud speaker turn incomprehensible and he nearly forgets where he is or why. But suddenly, the boy breaks eye contact and looks up at the wall just next to Matteo’s head, blinking twice. Then he’s getting up, slinging his bag over his shoulder and walking away without another glance.

Matteo feels like he’s just coming out of a daze because it takes another moment to register that the boy is leaving because it’s time to board the train to Amsterdam. So they’re both going to the same place then. By the time Matteo stabilizes himself enough to walk, two people have managed to sneak between them in line. Still, Matteo keeps the boy’s white shirt in sight before he disappears inside, then reappears in the window as he makes his way down the aisle.

When Matteo himself enters, he has to unpocket his crumpled ticket and recheck where he’s meant to sit. Since he paid the lowest possible price, he’s towards the very back. He leaves through people standing in the aisle but finally he gets there.

And wow, okay. There must be a bored god who wants to see Matteo make an absolute fool of himself, because even though the boy’s looking out the window, there’s no mistaking it. Dark wavy hair, olive skin, crisp white shirt. Matteo wipes his sweaty palms on the front of his own baggy jeans before taking his own seat directly across.

The boy doesn’t notice him at first and seems to be somewhere else entirely. He keeps looking out the window, tracking passengers as roll their luggage through the train station. Matteo would normally feel bad for staring at a stranger without them knowing, but the thing is, he can’t help it and he can’t make himself stop. So he just keeps looking.

The first thing he notices is that this boy’s eyelashes are insanely long. They curl up and sweep the tops of his cheeks as he blinks. Then Matteo shifts to his ears. Now he’s wearing black headphones hooked into the phone resting on the table between them. Matteo looks down to see what he’s listening to but is met with a black screen.

When Matteo looks back up, the boy is no longer gazing out the window. Now he’s looking back at him instead.

Matteo realizes he probably looks like an idiot, because he’s just staring, dumbstruck, despite the fact that the boy is now smiling at him. It’s a small, tentative smile, produced by perfectly shaped lips. Matteo blinks then smiles back, and because he has no self control, it ends up turning into a wide grin showing all his front teeth.

“Hi,” he blurts out, sounding a little more loud and eager than he would have liked.

“Hello,” the boy greets back, in a voice much smoother than Matteo’s. He takes the headphones his out of his ears and holds eye contact.

His eyes contain endless shades of brown, subtle enough in variation that Matteo only notices how many there are after a couple of seconds. But now that he sees, he could spend at least an hour watching how they shift and blur with the light, as though they were carefully painted using a fine tipped brush. Shifting his gaze downwards a bit, Matteo notices there’s a light dusting of freckles on his nose, and further down still, a silver septum piercing. The metal glints as the sun shines through the large window next to them.

Wait, sun shining through the window? Matteo blinks then turns his head to look outside. Somehow he didn’t even notice the train moving, but now they’re out of the train station, which means it will just be them sharing this booth for the next 6 hours. Just Matteo and the most gorgeous human he’s ever seen.

Matteo keeps looking out the window, blurry buildings flying past as they move through downtown Berlin and towards the outskirts of the city. He’s never been around a boy he finds this attractive before. And sure, there’s always been Jonas, but this far surpasses that. This crosses the line from comfortably hopeless childhood crush into new territory. Territory heavy enough to make breathing difficult. He feels like he has to consciously focus on getting enough air in his lungs or else he’ll pass out.

When he looks back, the boy’s headphones are in his ears again and he’s gazing out the window towards where Matteo was just looking. Matteo wonders if he missed his chance to talk to him, if now they’d just be silent for the entire train ride. Maybe he even thought Matteo was weird and doesn’t want to talk to him because of the staring. And it’s fine, okay? Matteo has cheese and bread and his own headphones. He’s got Netflix and a new playlist he made last night in anticipation of this very moment. So it really is fine. It’s just a boy, and after 6 hours, he’ll probably never even see him again. They’ll both disappear into Amsterdam and that’ll be it.

He realizes he’s been tightly clutching his backpack in his lap since he sat down. He loosens his grip before lifting it over to the seat next to him, unzipping the small compartment for his headphones. He plugs them into his phone and just as he’s lifting them to his ears, he hears a throat clear from across the table. He drops his hands and looks up.

“Sorry, I just noticed you have an iPhone too,” the boy says, gesturing towards Matteo’s phone. “Do you happen to have a charger? I was in such a hurry that I left mine behind.”

Matteo doesn’t even hesitate. He eagerly reaches for his backpack, yanking the zipper back open then digging through to the bottom of all his things. A couple shirts fall out in the process, wrinkled from the lack of effort Matteo put into properly folding them this morning. Ugh. Why couldn’t he have just packed the damn charger on top? That would have been the logical thing to do. The boy is watching the whole thing, and when Matteo finally locates the charger and hands it to him, he looks genuinely amused. His eyes shine a little brighter while he smiles.

“Thank you. I’m David by the way.”

David. David sets the charger down on the table before extending his right hand towards Matteo. And then, because Matteo is Matteo, he offers his left hand in return. It results in a truly awkward handshake which forces Matteo to weirdly contort his arm. David takes the whole thing in stride, laughing lightly as their hands drop again.

“And you are?” David urges, fully grinning now.

Oh right, Matteo’s supposed to introduce himself too.

“Matteo,” he replies, blushing a little.

“I like that name,” David tells him softly before glancing out the window again then back. “Anyways, thank you for the charger.”

He dips beneath the table to plug it in before resurfacing. Then, with one last smile, he puts his headphones back in and falls asleep.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Matteo get to know each other a little bit better. Matteo really, really likes David, but he's not sure how David feels about him...

David has been sleeping for 30 minutes now and Matteo hasn’t been watching. Really, he hasn’t. He’s just been looking occasionally, maybe once every 10 minutes or so. He times his glances with the songs playing on his headphones, only looking over once he’s listened to three songs all the way through.

About 2 glances ago, David shifted in his sleep and now he’s resting his head against the window, a wave of hair falling on his forehead. The light shifts and moves over his face, highlighting and shadowing each feature as they travel.

While David continues sleeping, Matteo mainly forces himself into watching the trees blur from one to the next, like paint laid on a canvas by fingers. It’s particularly sunny today, he notices again, feeling the beginnings of a burn on his forehead. He’s never brought sunscreen anywhere, never really cared to, but a plan begins formulating in his mind. Perhaps he could ask David if he has some, in exchange for the phone charger he provided. It sounds like something Jonas would do when flirting with a girl, a playful request tinged with a hint of flirtation, just enough to test the waters. Too smooth for Matteo, he decides, sinking further back into his booth and unlocking his phone. David’s asleep anyway, and Matteo is sure the last thing he wants is to be woken for _sunscreen_ of all things.

Matteo leans his head against the window and uses his sweater as a pillow, scrolling through Instagram. His feed is filled with summer pictures and video clips. Kiki and Carlos pretending to be birds at the beach, Hanna gallivanting around Berlin with her new boyfriend, Jonas playing guitar under a tree at the park. Matteo continues scrolling until he reaches the end of his feed, then opens Candy Crush for another distraction. He still has 5 and a half hours to kill, each second all the more noticeable since he’s got the most beautiful boy ever across from him and he’s trying to pretend like it doesn’t faze him at all.

He’s on level 2 when David shifts again in his sleep then stretches his arms above his head, locking his fingers together and yawning. Matteo watches the whole thing, letting pieces of candy fall where they may in favor of _this_ whole thing happening right in front of his very eyes. Before Matteo can look back down, David’s eyes open and he immediately smiles at Matteo, sleepily blinking then yawning again. The whole thing is quite possibly the most adorable thing Matteo has ever seen, like a kitten uncurling from a nap.

“How long was I asleep for?” David mumbles, gaze fully settling on Matteo now. The words tumble over each other, almost incomprehensible enough that Matteo has to lean forward a bit to fully understand.

“Not sure,” Matteo lies. He knows it was about 40 minutes exactly, but even he has the sense not to say it. “Probably like, half n hour?” Close enough.

“Ah, thank you. Didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night. Was too busy working on some projects,” David explains, unhooking his headphones from his ears. Matteo does the same.

Projects. What projects? That could mean so many things. Matteo wants to ask for more information and almost does, forgetting about looking overly curious. But then David is standing up, feeling around in his pockets.

“I’m off to get some coffee, would you like anything?”

Matteo’s not about to say no. He thinks, if they both get coffee, it could be kind of like a date of sorts right? Matteo doesn’t even really drink coffee, but whatever. This is straight out of one of those romantic comedies his mom used to watch when he was a kid. A meet cute, he thinks they’re called. He nods, reaching into his own pocket for his wallet and fishing out a few bills.

“I’ll have the same,” he tells David, handing the cash over.

“How do you take it?” David asks, pocketing Matteo’s money alongside his own.

“What do you mean?”

David chuckles. “Like, your coffee. Do you like cream? Sugar? Black?”

Truth is, Matteo has no idea how he “takes” his coffee, but David looks like he’s about to burst out into a full laugh at any minute so he just tells him black and leaves it at that.

David’s smirking as he turns towards the cart at the front of the cabin, and Matteo watches him go.

***

When David returns with the coffee, he gently sets Matteo’s in front of him along with a few leftover coins.

The coffee is so black Matteo can see his own reflection on the surface. David’s coffee is accompanied by two creams, which he stirs into the cup gracefully before taking a sip. Matteo lifts his cup up to his lips to do the same, but just as he tips the drink back two things happen. One, the coffee is exceptionally hot and burns his tongue. Two, the coffee is bitter. It’s so bitter that he can’t help but make a face, even though he tries not to. This reminds him why he doesn’t drink coffee.

Matteo is quickly learning that David is more observant than most boys their age, because he watches Matteo carefully and then, with a slight laugh, reaches into his pocket and sets two more creams in front of Matteo along with a stirrer.

“I don’t know why, but you didn’t strike me as a black coffee kind of guy,” David explains, looking at him with that same smile which is quickly making Matteo feel warm all over. “I grabbed these for you just in case. Sorry if that’s, like, presumptuous or whatever.”

Matteo quietly thanks him and stirs them into his coffee just as David did, watching as the cream turns the black into a muddy brown.

“Nah, not presumptuous if you’re actually right. But how did you know I don’t like black coffee?” Matteo asks, before taking a sip. It’s actually not so bad. The taste is almost comforting on his tongue.

“Just a feeling,” David shrugs, “I really don’t know to be honest. I’ve always been able to read people. But do you like it with the cream?”

Matteo takes another sip then nods, and David sips his too. They sit there quietly for a few moments. David begins snapping his wood stirrer into tiny pieces and arranging them into a face. Two little pieces for the eyes, one for the nose, several lined up together to form a mouth. Matteo watches the whole thing, and once David runs out of wood, he slides his own stirrer over to him. David eagerly snaps it just as he did his own, and adds an oval around the features to complete the face shape. His brows furrow in concentration as he works. Matteo is hopelessly endeared.

“What are you, an artist or something?” Matteo teases.

“Sure,” David shrugs, “I like messing around with things.”

They fall into silence again and David runs his hand over the wood pieces again until they scatter completely, the face gone.

“So you’re going to Amsterdam too, obviously,” David muses, looking up to study Matteo. Matteo nearly feels hot under the inquisitive way David is looking at him now, like he’s trying to figure something out. “What brings you there?”

“No idea,” Matteo tells him, “Just thought it would be fun. I don’t really have much to do right now and I’ve never been to Amsterdam. So yeah.”

“That’s cool. Are you meeting anyone there?”

Matteo hesitates then shakes his head. “Nah, just solo tripping.”

He knows he probably shouldn’t tell a stranger that he’ll be alone in a strange city. He doesn’t know David at all, and the’ve only just met. But something about the way David makes him feel takes away any apprehension he might normally have. He, for some reason, feels like he could tell David anything, but he doesn’t know why. _Kind of dangerous_, he thinks.

“Same,” David tells him, “I’m alone too, I mean. And I have literally no idea what I’m doing here!” He laughs. “I’m just so… bored at home in Berlin all the time.”

“Yeah,” Matteo nods, “I know what you mean. Like I’ve just been sitting around getting stoned all the time,” Matteo starts, pausing to check David’s reaction, but he’s still just staring at Matteo inquisitively. “But I felt like I was wasting time. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, but this feels right, like right now, you know?”

“Yeah, right right now,” David chuckles, taking another sip of his coffee. Matteo takes another sip too. “Is there anything you wanna see in particular?”

Matteo racks his brain. Truthfully, he hasn’t done any research on Amsterdam. He only knows the vague route from the train station to the hostel he’s staying at, and also he knows there’s boats and canals. And weed cafes.

“Boats. Canals. Weed cafes,” he deadpans, which earns a hearty laugh from David. He throws his head back and clutches his coffee cup. Matteo feels proud of himself for causing such a reaction, and laughs too even though he didn’t even think it was all that funny. It takes a few minutes for both of them to catch their breath, but then they fall into a comfortable silence again.

“Well, that’s quite the adventure,” David teases after a moment, “I personally just want to walk around. I don’t know. See things, hear things… Maybe visit the Van Gogh museum.”

“Hah,” Matteo chuckles, “hear things.. at the Van Gogh museum. Get it?”

Matteo’s glad he remembered this little bit of art history trivia about the famous artist who chopped his own ear off. Maybe this even impressed David? I mean, he said he was an artist himself right?

David chuckles too, “yes Matteo, I get it.”

And okay, he doesn’t sound that impressed at all, but still. Matteo nearly melts at the way David says his name, like it’s something to be handled with care. Something to be cherished. He’s never heard his name said like that, or maybe he just never really cared how anybody said it because he wasn’t wildly attracted to them, not like he is with David.

And yeah, he’s wildly attracted to David. He feels it all around him, burning into his eyes the longer he looks at him. Seeping into his thoughts the longer he listens, until he can’t deny it at all. It's just a fact, same way his hair being blonde is a fact. And he feels it in the air, hanging heavy between them. Surely David can tell. Matteo has, admittedly, been making a fool of himself this entire train ride. Yet David doesn’t seem to care. He seems to even enjoy Matteo’s clunky company, judging by the way his eyes brighten as they talk. Unless David makes everyone feel special and seen. Maybe he soothes everyone he comes across, makes them feel, however briefly, perfectly valid just as they are. And Matteo’s never felt valid, but he figures he must have been doing something right, because here he is, sitting across from this… boy.

David stretches again, lifting his arms above his head, then lowering them again to settle on the wood pieces. This time, he begins forming them into a different shape. Matteo watches as he curves them carefully, first forming a large outer curve then a smaller one inside the first.

Once David seems satisfied with the result, he stops to look at Matteo, dropping his hands into his lap. Matteo waits for an explanation.

“It’s Van Gogh’s ear,” David finally tells him in a rush, like he can’t get the words out fast enough, grinning so proudly it burns as bright as the sun. And shit. Matteo’s never seen a smile like that before. Just David’s smile alone has Matteo grinning too, then breaking out into a full blown laugh.

“Very creative,” Matteo tells him, pulling out his phone and opening the camera. “I must document.”

He snaps a picture of the ear and David almost looks like he could be blushing, but it’s so subtle Matteo can’t be sure.

And well, this is part of his adventure right? This is it. So he figures he might as well post the picture to Instagram, because he doesn’t want to forget this just as much as he’s sure he won’t want to forget the famous canals. Maybe he doesn’t want to forget this even more than that.

“Instagram,” he tells David, posting the picture then captioning it _“the ear of Van Gogh.”_

David watches, but when Matteo looks up, he seems different than before. Somehow, his expression looks a little less warm. His eyes aren’t as bright. It feels like some of the energy that had existed between them is now gone, replaced by something a little colder. Matteo doesn’t quite know what to do with this because he’d been so used to the warmth before, and now it feels like it’s been yanked from him and he’s just scrambling to keep up.

David looks away from Matteo and out the window. Matteo watches as the light plays with his features from the side, curling through his long eyelashes before weaving through the brown of his eyes, then down to his silver septum piercing. He takes one last look at David, then shifts his focus to the scenery too.

It’s still hot, too hot, the sun burning through the glass and soaking into Matteo’s skin. His forehead feels like it could have been scratched with sandpaper now. He feels warm all over, but the air between him and David feels cold somehow. Maybe he’d been reading it all wrong. Maybe David doesn’t even like guys. Maybe he’s just straight and charming, the kind of person who grabs extra creams for another guy they don’t know just because they’re worried they won’t like their coffee black. I mean, that exists right? Matteo himself wouldn’t even think to grab creamers for someone he wasn’t friends with or interested in, but maybe David’s just… special.

They’ve still got another three hours until Amsterdam, and Matteo wants to keep talking to David but he doesn’t think David wants to talk to him, so he begins scrolling through his phone again, checking for any Instagram updates. Nothing.

His stomach growls and he remembers the cheese and bread in his backpack. He’d brought enough for most of the trip, an entire loaf and pack of cheddar, and he lays them out, grabbing a few napkins from the dispenser at the end of the table. David’s attention has now shifted from the window and back to Matteo, watching as he sets two pieces of bread side by side and lays cheese on each. He puts the whole thing together and takes a bite.

“That’s _it_?” David asks, sounding more surprised than Matteo thinks a simple cheese sandwich should warrant.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, just cheese and bread. And, like, nothing else. Just seems a little boring is all,” David tells him, shrugging.

“Oh shut up,” Matteo chuckles, “this is all I have. I’m hungry and this does the job.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know. Suit yourself,” David shrugs again, smirking slightly now.

Matteo rolls his eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite. What would _you_ put on a cheese sandwich?”

David ponders the question for a few moments, then reaches for his own bag.

“Alright, you’re going to think I’m crazy but hear me out. A little bit of whipped cream goes with everything,” David tells him, and then he miraculously produces a small can from the depths of his bag. Matteo is too surprised to tell David he thinks this suggested concoction is absolutely disgusting. But then it gets worse.

He’s got little packets of pickled cucumber, ketchup and mustard. He gestures for one of Matteo’s slices of bread, and Matteo willingly gives it to him. He lays a slice of Matteo’s cheese on the bread, followed by the whipped cream and then ketchup, mustard and pickled cucumbers. It’s all so disgusting, but when David takes a bite he looks so satisfied that Matteo has to try it himself. So he does.

It doesn’t taste any better than he thought it would. It’s actually so terribly bad that Matteo starts laughing through his first bite and then David laughs too. They laugh so loudly that passengers two rows down shush them, so Matteo has to bury his head in his arms and try to be quieter.

“Why,” Matteo starts, lifting his head and trying to catch his breath, “do you have that stuff?”

“Because you never know when you’ll need whipped cream right?” David explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. But actually, at least to Matteo, it makes no sense all. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him. “And ketchup and mustard, the staples of every lunch am I right? And the picked cucumbers, I don’t even know…” David trails off.

“Fair enough,” Matteo tells him.

David keeps eating his sandwich, but Matteo has a slight feeling he just added the other ingredients to get a reaction out of Matteo, because he takes a napkin and wipes it all off until just the cheese and bread remain. He doesn’t ask why.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” David suddenly asks after a few moments of silence, and of course Matteo does. He just wants to keep spending time with David, in any way possible.

“Sure, do you have Netflix?”

David shakes his head, so Matteo pulls out his own phone and headphones. They each take a earpiece and settle on a movie together, and it’s all so comfortable that Matteo forgets he didn’t even know David earlier today. He forgets David was ever a stranger at all.

***

They watch almost two full movies by the time they get to Amsterdam.

When the train stops, David hands Matteo’s headphone back to him and stands up to grab his bag. Matteo does the same, taking one last look at their table before following David down the aisle and into the city.


End file.
